This AACN Visionary Leadership Award recognizes significant contributions that influence high-acuity and critical care nursing and relate to the association’s mission, vision and values. The presentation will occur during the 2019 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition (NTI), Orlando, Florida, May 20-23.

The recipients are being recognized individually for their innovative work in the development of clinical tools used by critical care nurses to assess patients every day in hospitals around the world.

“The evidence-based tools developed by Dr. Inouye and Dr. Gélinas have transformed the ability of clinicians to assess pain, agitation and delirium among hospitalized patients,” said AACN board president Lisa Riggs, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN-K. “These tools have become an integral part of the decision-making process, as nurses work to bring comfort and improve outcomes for critically ill patients who are hurting, confused or unable to communicate.”

Gélinas developed the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT), one of the most valid and reliable behavioral pain scales for assessing pain in critically ill adult patients unable to communicate pain. CPOT has been translated into more than 15 languages and implemented in hundreds of ICUs worldwide.

She is associate professor at Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University, and a researcher at the Centre for Nursing Research and the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Her expertise is related to pain assessment and management of patients in the adult intensive care unit, and she has been involved in the development of pain management guidelines at national and the international levels. She recently served as the leader of the pain section of the 2018 Society of Critical Care Medicine practice guidelines.

Inouye created the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM), the most widely used method for identification of delirium worldwide. She is a professor at Harvard Medical School (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center), holder of the Milton and Shirley F. Levy Family Chair, and director of the Aging Brain Center at the Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife.

Her clinical and research work has focused on finding ways to improve the quality, safety and outcomes of hospitalization for older adults and has revolutionized the way hospital care is provided.

Through her innovative work, Inouye also developed a scientifically proven method for reducing delirium and functional decline in hospitalized older adults, the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP). A nursing-centered volunteer-assisted multicomponent program for prevention of delirium, HELP has been implemented in hundreds of hospitals around the world.

About the AACN Pioneering Spirit Award: The annual AACN Pioneering Spirit Award recognizes significant contributions that influence high-acuity and critical care nursing regionally and nationally, and relate to AACN’s mission, vision and values. Recipients of this Visionary Leadership Award come from business, academia and healthcare, and receive a plaque and $1,000 honorarium at the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition. Other Visionary Leadership awards, AACN’s highest honor, include AACN’s Lifetime Membership Awards and the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career.

About the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: Founded in 1969 with 400 members, the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is the world’s largest specialty nursing organization. In 2019, AACN celebrates 50 years of acute and critical care nursing excellence, serving more than 120,000 members and over 200 chapters in the United States. The organization remains committed to its vision of creating a healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families in which acute and critical care nurses make their optimal contribution. During its 50th anniversary year, AACN continues to salute and celebrate all that nurses have accomplished over the last half century, while honoring their past, present and future impact on the evolution of high-acuity and critical care nursing.